Design Empowerment

Designers, consider a time in your career where your designs felt a bit micromanaged. Perhaps the team, or even executives, were debating button copy or a string of marketing copy? Or, maybe someone simply “wasn’t feeling” a particular icon or color choice.

This condition - micromanagement of design - is one of the main reasons designers are hopping from job to job. In fact, a recent study showed that the average employment length for a UX designer at public companies is just under two years.​Most contribute this to the competitive market for user experience designers, or some say it’s a reflection of “millennial impatience” - yet, more often than not, we aren’t chasing a title, or even a salary; we are searching for a company that values our work and gives us the autonomy to deliver work for our customers, our company, and yes, ourselves.

When boiled down, this is the central question we ask: “How can I be empowered to deliver great design?"

A recent study showed that the average employment length for a UX designer at public companies is just under two years.

The Dynamic of In-House Design

Consider this: 74% of customers would immediately switch brands if they had a negative experience. Simply, customers now value (and companies have to prioritize) UX/UI in ways that were impossible to imagine just a few years ago. As a reaction, companies are embracing “digital transformation” - they adopt agile, hire engineers and designers, all to move quickly to meet customers digital expectations.

While positive, at the same time, newly hired designers (often with limited experience at scaled corporations) are expected to educated, advocate and define how they fit within larger marketing or product departments, in addition to the software development processes. Additionally, executives feel pressure to show that the investments and hires they’ve made are producing an immediate return - so, they sometimes encroach and micromanage - the design process.

​What's more, many marketing professionals, largely, have only worked with creative agencies, where design and design reviews tend to deep dive into creative details, picking apart every aspect of design.

As we found earlier, this scenario plays itself out in continued micromanagement, causing friction for the design team and leadership; sadly, leading to the lack of empowerment, and frankly, producing to designs that often fail to meet customer, company or designer expectations.

It's not working. We can do better.

​Whether you are a solo designer, on a small team, or in a scaled enterprise, here are constructive and actionable steps you can take to build the culture where you are given the trust - and space - to allow your work to speak for itself.

Actionable Steps to Build Autonomy

To help break this dynamic, one of the most actionable ways to build healthy autonomy is to have a conversation and agreement on “Feedback” and “Sign Off” between the design team, engineering and leadership. It may seem subtle, but understanding the difference between “feedback” and “sign off” is critical in building a culture (and process) that favors accountability and empowerment.

Let’s start with definitions:

Feedback​​The process of soliciting information about reactions to a design, all to strengthen the approach to problem solving or creative execution.

Sign Off​​The process to officially approve of something or to agree that something has been completed and ready to launch. ​

Examples of Constructive Feedback

As the old adage goes, “Feedback is a gift.” And yes, it certainly is! I cannot emphasize enough the strategic and tactical importance of feedback in the design process. In regard to executive feedback specifically, you are tapping into a highly experienced professional with a breadth of important information, including:

Industry Context - Executives are trained to think years out, to identify and exploit market or competitive gaps. Designers, more often than not, think in sprints. In short, the perspective of an executive can truly help inform the long-term evolution of your design, informing scalability, future features, and potential new users and audiences.

Institutional Knowledge - More often than not, executives will have been at the company longer than the designer. This within itself allows an important perspective. They will be able to explain reasoning of why things are they way they are, or even, articulate prior initiatives of success or failure, all passing along important historical context to avoid mistakes of the past, or leverage successes of the past.

Business Strategy - Often, for many designers, our business goals are explained through numerical targets (i.e. increase conversion by 1.2%). However, we can miss the larger strategy. Executives can share helpful insights into the strategy, which can help the designer grasp the long-term vision for the experience. ​

Understanding the difference between “feedback” ​and “sign off” is critical in building empowerment.

Examples of "Sign Off" Design

Just as feedback has value, so does sign off. Obviously, the executive is accountable for the larger performance, but also, should know of all major, moving pieces in the design process. Examples of initiatives that should require sign-off:

Features - The design of any new features can have unforeseen impacts, both positive or negative and would be important for an executive to know about.

A/B Tests - Testing isn’t just about improvement of metrics, it allows for experimentation or learning. Informing an executive of all A/B tests allows the the visibility of the test, but the opportunity to follow along on performance and learn through the process as well.

Navigation - Continuous updates to the navigation are natural for scaling platforms, however the slightest change can lead to unforeseen user behaviors, which could require notifying customer operations. ​

New Process, Improved Outcomes

As noted earlier, often executive involvement often has best intentions, but unintended negative consequences. Through the leadership of the department, or yourself the sole designer at an organization, discuss the differences between feedback and signoff, and the examples listed.

More importantly, make sure to focus on the desired outcomes of this new process. Each organization is different, but measurable outcomes of the the new space given to the designer include:

Increased Speed - In today’s economy, it’s now about big or small, it’s about fast or slow. Any reduction in meetings, or administrative overhead means that design and experiences will move to market faster. Outline to the executive how you will be able to move faster, tackle more work, and get better design into market faster.

More Time for Strategy - A common frustration for executives is spending time on running the business, rather than growing the business. Highlight to them the time and space they will have to dedicate on larger, “executive-level” strategy, rather than worrying about day-to-day implementation details.

Boost Employee Retention & Acquisition - More often than not, executives are open and willing to consider initiatives that improve employee experience and build healthy cultures. Discuss how empowerment is rare, and would be a powerful, constructive new aspect of working at the company, which could help employee retention and acquisition.

Finally, conclude the conversation by recommending a trial process - most executives understand the importance of testing and learning, and will try a recommended approach from the team, especially one that is thoughtful, constructive and comes with the best of intentions, for everyone involved.